


Robert Sugden you have broken my heart

by LJANE2018C



Category: Emmerdale, robron
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2019-06-17
Packaged: 2020-05-13 13:38:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19252303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LJANE2018C/pseuds/LJANE2018C
Summary: I was really upset when I heard the news that robron were soon to be no more so to cheer myself I have devised some exit storylines that will allow Ryan to return to  Emmerdale. (This is me clutching at straws that he will come back one day).Chapter 1 - False Imprisonment for Murder





	Robert Sugden you have broken my heart

**Author's Note:**

> This is just a bit of fun. When I finally finish my Missing Years fiction I might write one of my exit scenario's as I don't have much hope that Emmerdale with give me the ending I would have selected if I had the choice.
> 
> I'm not on social media so if you want to chat about robron please leave comments and I will reply
> 
> I

Option No 1 – Falsely imprisoned for a Murder he didn’t committed

Initial premise for scenario

After Friday 14th June 2019 episode Lee Posner when confronted by Robert and Aaron over what he had done to Victoria showed no remorse whatsoever, in fact the way the scene panned out it came across that he didn’t even believe he had done anything wrong let alone committed an act of rape. Several very unsavoury remarks followed as he tried to pass of what he had done (that’s an understatement, he was absolutely vile). Based on his demeanour he could in all likelihood be a serial rapist. It is highly doubtful that Victoria was his first victim and she in all probability will not be his last.

Background information

There are reports that Victoria will be stalked/watched by a mystery man. For this scenario lets say he was the father of one of Lee’s previous victims. His daughter on a night out met Lee, as in the case with Victoria he went out of his way to seem like a nice guy so when he offered to take her home she felt safe with him. Once he was in her flat he didn’t take no for answer and raped her. Just like Victoria she was deeply traumatised by what had happened, however unlike Victoria she never reported the rape as she was to ashamed and wrongly blamed herself. To her horror a few weeks later she discovered she was pregnant. 

At this point lets say that she was a Catholic so the idea of abortion was one that was even more difficult to make due to religious grounds as well as all the pro-life arguments. It got to the point that she was so distraught that she either killed herself or failed to look as she was crossing a road and was hit by a car and died.

When his daughter died an autopsy was performed and he learns that his daughter had been raped and was pregnant.

Robert and Aaron unbeknown start off a chain of events

Robert and Aaron put up posters branding Lee Posner a rapist. Victoria is furious and demands that they take them down (already a fact). Before they can remove them all a woman sees the posters and recognises Lee as the man that her best friend went home with. The woman takes a poster and shows it to her best friend’s father (mystery man). She tells him where she has seen the posters and he goes and looks for himself and sees Robert and Aaron taking them down. He follows than back to Emmerdale and sees them with Victoria. 

He overhears their conversation and begins to piece together that Victoria was one of Lee’s victims. At this point the mystery man begins to suspects that Lee was responsible for raping his daughter as well and starts to watch him.

Lee is murdered

Robert has been out wining and dining a client in Hotten. As he leaves he sees Lee with a young woman. He starts to worry that she is in danger and follows them. Lee takes the woman to a secluded spot and begins to try and persuade her to have sex with him. She refuses and he gets nasty. Robert comes to her rescue. 

Robert is incandescent seeing what Lee was about to do and lashes out and gives him a severe beating. He stops himself in time from hurting him so badly that he kills him. Robert walks away and leaves him where he is telling him that if he goes to the police he will report what he saw.

The mystery man has seen what has happened and he confronts Lee with what he did to his daughter and for what he was about to do to the woman he had with him earlier. For dramatic effect he could show Lee a photo of his daughter. The man understandable is heartbroken over what happened to his daughter and in a highly volatile state. 

Lee struggles to his feet and confronts the man, he laughs in his face and tells the man that his daughter was just another slag who was gagging for it. Lee walks past the man. The man has a knife in his pocket and he takes it out and stabs Lee in the back. Lee falls to the ground, he tries to crawl away but the man stabs him repeatedly until he is dead.

The man walks away. Nobody sees him.

The police investigate Lee’s murder

The police piece together Lee’s last movements. 

The woman that he tried to rape ran away when Robert rescued her. She is angry and distressed about what happened and when she sees a police car she stops and tells them what happened.  
She is taken to the station where she gives a detailed statement about what occurred. She gives them descriptions of Lee and Robert. She mentions how Robert saved her and where the attack took place.

The police have spoken to Victoria about the posters and have seen Robert and Aaron at the same time. Robert fits the description of the man that came to the rescue.

Robert is arrested and charged with murder

Robert is the main suspect. He was seen at the scene of the crime. There is a witness (the woman he saved) to place him there at the time Lee was murdered. He has damage to his hands due to punching Lee and his DNA is found on Lee’s face due to his hand being cut when he hit him. He is placed close to the scene on the day and time thanks to a credit card transaction (he paid for the meal when he took the clients out). 

The only piece of evidence they don’t have is the murder weapon.

Robert’s trial.

Victoria tells the court that Robert was obsessed with making Lee pay for raping her. Her testimony is damning and along with the circumstantial evidence everything to all intense and purposes point to Robert having murdered Lee. Robert gives evidence, pleading his innocent and that it was all coincidental. He sticks to his story despite being ripped apart by the prosecuting barrister.

Aaron is present throughout the trial. He had tried so hard to believe Robert is innocent but having listened to all the evidence he comes round to the idea that Robert is really guilty after all and that he had lied to him all along about not murdering Lee.

Robert’s protestations fall on deaf ears and the jury find him guilty of murder.

Robert breaks down at the verdict, he protests his innocence repeatedly and has to be dragged from the dock. Aaron is watching from the galleries. 

Aaron visits Robert in the holding cell. Aaron is so distraught about what has happened he unfortunately reverts back to his old self and lashes out without thinking what he is saying. He has some harsh words to say to Robert. He blames Robert for ruining their lives. He tells Robert that he wishes he had never met him. Robert pleads with him, telling him that he is innocent but Aaron tells him he doesn’t believe him any more. As Aaron leaves the cell Robert is still begging him to believe him, telling Aaron that he loves him and needs him but Aaron ignores him and walks away leaving him all alone.

Robert is broken by Aaron’s words. He is going to prison for something he didn’t do and he believes that he has lost Aaron forever. On top of this he feels betrayed by his sister. He had only wanted to protect her and she destroyed him in return with her damning evidence. 

Robert reflects on how badly Victoria has let him down. In a moment of clarity he finally sees Victoria for who she is. The sister that had once been kind to him isn’t that person any more. She had morphed into his father. Robert hears his father’s voice in his head telling him what a disappointment he is, he hears Diane’s voice telling him how ashamed his father and Sarah would be at what he had turned out like and he recollects the words that Aaron has just spoken to him.

As this point I have to say that I have been watching Classic Emmerdale. I wasn’t a massive fan of Jack Sugden back then and seeing him once more has reminded me what a pig headed, arrogant man he was. The only opinion that he listened to was he own and he was always right. He rode rough shot over everybody that disagreed with him or did things he didn’t approve of. I feel vindicated in disliking him and holding him to account in my fiction the Missing Years for the emotional and physical damage he did to Robert during his impressionable teenage years.

Unfortunately in recent times this is how Emmerdale are portraying Victoria. She had total disregard for anybody else’s advice if it doesn’t match her own opinions. She talks down to people in a very nasty way at times, telling them what to do and how they should think without showing any respect to their differing points of view. Robert in particular seems to be bearing the brunt of her nastiness. Its true that he has been tactless at times but he has put forward some very valid points about having a baby conceived through rape that if you were looking at things clearly they are things that should be considered carefully. I understand that Victoria has been traumatised so it is understandable that she isn’t in a place for logic thought but she seems to be okay with everybody telling her what they think so there is no consistency when Robert is always shot down in flames for voicing his concern from a place of love.

Robert finally snaps. All the heartache and pain he has endured throughout his life coupled with his confrontation with Aaron sends him over the edge. He tries to kill himself by bashing his head against the wall. The guards find him unconscious and he is rushed to hospital. 

At this point it all depends on what the future holds regarding Ryan Hawley’s/Emmerdale’s plans for the role of Robert Sugden. My heartfelt wish is that Ryan returns in the near future or if he decides not to (nightmarish scenario) as a last resort the role is recast. Like a lot of robron fans the thought that he dies is unthinkable and to painfully to contemplate so I am going to assume that he lives on.

Robert actions have left him very badly hurt. He ended up needing an emergency operation to save his life. He could be in a coma for however long they want him to be. 

When Robert finally regains consciousness he could then suffer a breakdown as he can’t cope with being alive and having to live in a world where his life is in total ruin or he could have amnesia. There is scope for a lot of dramatic scenes in either scenario.

Robert’s sentencing

The judge is told that Robert has tried to kill himself and is critically ill in hospital. 

Robert’s barrister has prepared a pre sentencing report which uncovers facts about Robert’s earlier life that hadn’t be known during the trial (Robert has always been reticent about his past and he buries his pain deep. He wouldn’t want to tell anybody about the terrible things that might have happened to him). There is a chance here to provide some added mystery to tease the fans about his missing nine years that unfathomably have never been explored on Emmerdale in the five years he had been back (what a wasted opportunity). For arguments sake lets say that Robert himself had been a victim of rape but he hadn’t reported it and the man responsible had then gone on to kill somebody. Robert has always been portrayed as somebody with low self worth so he would had felt such massive guilt that it was his fault that somebody had died and he could have prevented it, he would crucify himself mercilessly. So faced with Victoria’s attacker walking away scott free it would have acted as a trigger to make him obsess with stopping Lee hurting anybody else to atone for his failure in the past.

The barrister states at this point that had he been aware of Robert’s past he would have put up an alternative defence arguing that Robert’s mind was unbalanced at the time of Lee murder and the verdict should be murder due to diminished responsibility.

I’m not an expert on the law so as this is a soap lets say for dramatic purposes the prosecution agree to the lesser charge. Robert is sentenced to be held at a high-security psychiatric hospitals indefinitely when he is well enough (if ever) to leave hospital.

Some time later (fingers crossed repeatedly that Ryan reprises his role and not to far into the future either)

The mystery man is dying of cancer. He has only a few months to live. His conscience has been troubling him since he allowed an innocent man to go to prison for a murder he didn’t committed. He goes to his church and speaks to a priest about what he has done. The priest tells him that if he wants to cleanse his soul he has to confess to the police about what he did. The man agrees and he and the priest go to Hotten Police Station. The man confesses. During his confession he tells the police things that only the murderer could have known plus he is able to tell them where the murder weapon is. They find the murder weapon and they can prove that it was one of a set of knives that the mystery man owned. The man also shows motive when he recounts that Lee Posner was the man that raped his daughter. The daughters best friend can also give evident to support the mystery man’s claims.

Robert

If by some miracle Robert could return for cameo appearances there could be scenes of Robert at the hospital in varies stages of his recovery and then later there could be scenes of him talking to a counsellor at the high-security psychiatric hospital. There is so much scope for some very dramatic scenes. Lots of heartache and angst. Lots of chances for Robert to finally bear his soul and explore his painfully past.

There could also be scenes where Aaron is sitting by his bedside talking to him when he is in a coma. Saying how sorry he is and how much he loves and misses him. He could also tell Robert how his son is doing (Danny Miller would absolutely smash those scenes).

Aaron and Victoria

For a while Aaron is still angry with Robert. He blames him for ruining everything. He is also full of self loathing blaming himself for Robert trying to kill himself. The Mill becomes a place that hurts him to be in as there are memories everywhere of the live that he once had, where he had known a love beyond his imagining and been blissfully happy. 

Once his anger abates Aaron misses Robert more than he can bear. Lots of scope here for some standout scenes as Aaron comes to terms with his new reality, that he is all alone without his soulmate, husband and best friend.

Aaron eventually visits Robert at hospital where he is in a coma (as previously mentioned). 

To cut to the chase when Robert is recovered sufficiently to make decisions again he refuses to see Aaron any more, leaving Aaron heartbroken.

 

Robert is given an unconditional pardon

The mystery man’s confession leads to Robert being cleared of all charges. He is considered sufficiently mental capable of being released into society again after his breakdown and is allowed to leave the high-security psychiatric hospital.

Robert’s solicitor finds him a place to stay in Hotten where he slowly starts to rebuild his shattered life. Robert decides that he is never going to go back to Emmerdale because there is nothing and nobody there for him any more. Thanks to the therapy he has learned to live with his demons but he is still broken inside. He decides that he has to spend the rest of his life alone because he knows that he can never trust anybody again not to break his heart and he no longer has the strength to face rejection ever again.

Theoretically Robert should be due compensation for wrongful imprisonment so he should have enough money to live on without having to go back to working at Home James.

The police tell Aaron and Victoria that Robert was innocent after all

Aaron and Victoria learn the truth. Both have to deal with this information in their own way. 

Aaron would be devastated and riddled with guilt. He asks where Robert is but the police tell him that Robert has refused them permission to tell anybody his new address. This again would give Danny the chance to shine when Aaron could talk to his mum and Paddy about how bad he is feeling.

Victoria in her usually fashion would just shrug it off and say okay I got it wrong and then she would move on without thinking of all the pain that she had inflicted on her brother. Knowing her she would find a way to make it all Robert’s fault anyway. (sorry but she really has annoyed me for so long).

Robert and Aaron meet by chance in Hotten

Robert and Aaron meet by pure chance. 

Aaron is shocked by how thin and broken Robert looks. He manages to persuade Robert to have a coffee with him and they talk. The conversation will be painful and full of regret and remorse.

It will be the first of several meetings that pave the way for Robert and Aaron to be reconciled once more. This would give Robert and Aaron the chance for some brilliant scenes, but they would need to show how both men reach a point where they can be together again. No fast, trite scenes that have them back in bed within five minutes as it would be totally unrealistic that so much pain and heartache could be resolved so quickly.

Reunion and Return to the Mill

After a period of time Robert finally agrees to go back home to the Mill and live with Aaron again. 

He struggles at first to settle. 

Victoria goes to visit him but he finds that he can’t forgive her. Tells her that she is a female version of his dad and that she is as opinionated and judgemental as he was. Finally at long last he stops trying to protect his saintly dad’s memory and tell her some home truths about the way their dad treated him. Robert then tells her that he can’t have somebody like her in his life any more. This scene would also work if Diane was there. Its about time Robert told her about what a disappointment she had been as a stepmother!

During his conversation with Victoria Robert tells both her and Aaron that they had bullied him over her decision to keep the baby. They never let him have an opinion of his own and that they contributed to the mental torment he was going through in dealing with his sister being raped. There is a chance here to consider how the family of victims of serious crime cope. Whilst the victim is the main priority there is also the secondary trauma that loved ones go through.

Aaron is full of remorse. He realises that he needs to support Robert, that he has to be the strong one in their relationship going forward. This is new territory for them both and a role reversal would be another chance to see them evolve.

Happy Ever After

Robert slowly heals and he and Aaron are happy again.

Cue revisiting the surrogacy story again.


End file.
